From the GSI-IPS Subsidies Series. Part 1, by Ashfaq Yusufzai, is here
KABUL, Sep 30 (IPS) - In a teeming petrol market on the outskirts of Kabul, black market traders sell fuel to everyone from individual customers to large business groups. Although much of this petrol comes from Iran or the Central Asian countries, a good amount also hails from Pakistan, where government subsidies have made the fuel much cheaper than in Afghanistan.
The Afghan government and private businesses generally avoid buying petrol from Pakistan because of the spiraling insecurity on the routes into Afghanistan, but still much petrol manages to get in. How it does so and where it goes illustrates the complicated world of smugglers, border patrol agents and foreign militaries.
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KABUL, Mar 28 (IPS) - The Shahr-e-now park in the centre of Kabul has seen better days. “It used to be really beautiful,” Kabul resident Torialay says, “back during the early-90s. But after the Mujahiddin war (a civil war between warlords and commanders in the mid-90s that destroyed much of the city) it has never been restored.”
“Look at this place,” he says, waving his hand over a dusty lot filled with begging children and unemployed men. “The government and the Americans haven’t done anything for us. And they haven’t built roads or provided jobs. They’ve had six years to do it, but they haven’t.”
A growing number of Afghans are expressing dissatisfaction with the Karzai government and foreign presence in their country. With widespread corruption in government circles and a slow pace of reconstruction, support for ruling and foreign institutions are at an all-time low, experts say.
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KABUL, Mar 26 (IPS) - Jumakhan Said Muhammad was working on his land when he first heard the planes. “I looked up,” the farmer from Musa Qala, in the southern Helmand province, says. “Suddenly a plane flew by and I saw smoke rising from my house, which was down the road.”
Muhammad ran towards his home, where dozens of villagers were shouting his name as they surrounded his house. “The house was split in half by the bomb,” he recalls. “The walls were collapsed and crumbled. Blood was pouring from my nephew (seven-years-old) like it was water. He had shrapnel in his brain and stomach. I then saw my sister’s headscarf peeking out from underneath the rubble and so we raced desperately to save her. When we pulled her out from the wreckage I saw her body — she was cut completely in half. I started to scream.”
Muhammad’s sister and nephew are among a steady flow of civilian casualties caused by NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) bombardment, residents say. When such casualties started to rise last year — bombers destroyed Muhammad’s house in November — coalition forces pledged to change their tactics and ensure that civilians were not caught in such attacks.
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